The head of the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Thursday dismissed the idea that a “quick fix” could reduce U.S. gasoline prices, saying that rising demand and short supply resulting from sanctions on Iran’s oil sector are driving up prices.
EIA Acting Administrator Howard Gruenspecht, speaking at a Senate hearing on gasoline prices, said many experts believe these trends will continue “and that’s really a combination that’s affecting the market.”
The idea that speculative traders are making oil more expensive is a “minority view” among experts, Horsnell said. “And I think it’s an incorrect view based on faulty analysis.”
Many have questions the legitimacy of the U.S.-led international sanctions regime on Iran. The oil market is the sector that drives the Iranian economy, and many ordinary Iranians are suffering from high unemployment and rampant inflation caused by the sanctions.
The sanctions have come at a great cost for many European countries who rely heavily on Iranian oil, but were pressured into agreeing to the sanctions by the Obama administration. That they are causing a rise in global prices is especially damning.
Furthermore, the sanctions are supposedly part of an effort to persuade Iran to change course on its nuclear program. But there is a consensus in the U.S., European, and Israeli intelligence communities that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and has found itself well within the confines of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The sanctions continue primarily for domestic political reasons and to pacify Israel.
Thursday’s hearing coincided with a failed effort in the Senate to eliminate billions of dollars of tax breaks for the largest oil and natural-gas companies. The measure failed in a 51 to 47 vote, which needed 60 votes to pass.
Iran and Venezuela should thanks the US and Israel for raising the price of oil.
It is a mistake to repeat, as though true, the official claim that THE purpose of the sanctions to forestall Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons program. That official claim is merely a variation of the theme that the purpose of US invasions and occupations is to forestall "terrorism".
The ACTUAL motives are quite different having to do with: maintaining the financial position of the petrodollar, the MIC-Pentagon project to (profitably) attain full-spectrum global dominance, and preventing China in particular, but other nations as well, from having independent sources of vital resources. Both the recent invasion of Libya and the sanctions against Iran were designed to thwart China, Pakistan, and India from obtaining energy independence. Many, many billions of dollars are at stake in the development and control of energy resources.
For example, a key purpose of the sanctions against Iran is to prevent the completion of Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va…
The "terrorism" meme is for public consumption, and is meant to divert attention away from discussion of the actual motivations of power, wealth, and empire which only benefit an elite few.
Does it surprise anyone that this Senate hearing on gas prices – on Thursday – has received basically no media coverage at all? Imagine the uproar – from Congress – if it were to become known by a large portion of the American gas purchasers that the rise in gas prices were directly a result of what the Congress has done? That Congress is RESPONSIBLE for $4+/gal of gas!! Imagine the embarrassment on the Hill. But, fear not, dear elected Archon, you are protected by the media (and the money behind the media) from having to answer to the people. Fear not because the media will not reveal your complicity in the rape of the people's pocketbooks and wallets.
It just came over the wire that Obama is slapping MORE sanctions on Iran's oil sector today!!!
Is this man trying to throw his own re-election bid? if Americans wind up paying $5.00/gallon at the pump, there's no way this fraudster will be re-elected. For logic's sake, when will our leaders stop pandering to Israel? Are they really literally going to allow the country to be plunged head-long into a crippling depression to appease the Zionists in Tel-aviv? I had to scratch my eyes gain after I saw this news report this afternoon.
Of COURSE oil prices are going up. THAT is the whole purpose of the Iran Imbroglio.
Obama — like his predecessors Cheney, Clinton, Bush The Elder, and Carter before him — is totally bought and paid for and thus owned and operated by those who are benefitting the most from the increase in oil prices.
Cui Bono the spike in oil prices? You can bet your bottom sheckel that it is not Israel. Israel — since its very conceptualization back after WWI — has always been, is, and will ever be until it is replaced is nothing more than a strategic and tactical forward operational base for Western (read Anglo-American) hegemonic intentions in the region (because, obviously, of the oil).
Cui Bono the spike in oil prices? The same folks who Cui Bono'ed the most from the so-called "Terror" Event (aka The Coup) of September 11, 2001 and its resultant so-called "War" Against so-called "Terrorism."